The Burlington School District, and especially the board, need to be careful of any changes made to the district. They are suffering a temporary funding crisis, but it is just that.

The changes being proposed would greatly limit the attractiveness of our town to new business. Any changes you make must be weighed on the effect they have on the town. I'd rather pay a 1 percent tax increase on my home taxes than allow this to go through, and I am not big on tax increases.

Our children are more important than what you are proposing. Our town is worth more.

The superintendent is not intending to stay in the area, so he doesn't have a vested interest like most of us do. We have seen our jobs leave the area in record number, and we don't want any more to go.

I am hearing many parents say they intend to move if this goes through. What then? We lose a majority of kids who score high on the tests and fall further behind in the NCLB? Is this an answer?

Dr. Morrison knows that staying will be death to his career. He realizes that if he stays the choices he is making for us will reflect on the whole town and could lead to our demise. Well if he can't live with the changes, neither should we.

The district does have resources and should ask for other options from the community. We had plenty of money to build new buildings and I realize some were grants, but we could postpone the new building of James Madison until there was money to do so. We could move the district offices to one of those abandoned old schools that won't sell and sell the nice home they are using, which would be worth a lot of money.

We could downsize administration and go back to just one superintendent. They added the assistant in recent years because we had so much money and need? I would like to hear other ideas.

I am a senior honors student at the University of Iowa pursuing my bachelor of applied science with certification in non-profit management and a parent to eight children, four of whom are still young enough to be in the schools. If the board won't entertain other ideas and change this focus, we have the right to pay attention and vote them all out of office as they come up for re-election. I would be glad to run and listen to the parents.

PAMELA JOHNSON

Burlington